of such as have
erred before him, odious in the hopes he nurses, contemptible in the
methods he pursues, shameless in his deliberate distortions of truths he
has long since ceased to believe in, ludicrous in his present isolation
and helplessness, wounded and exasperated by the downfall which his own
folly has precipitated, he, the latest protagonist of a spurious cause,
cannot but in the end be subjected, as remorselessly as his infamous
predecessors, to the fate which they invariably have suffered.

Generated by the propelling and purifying forces of a mysterious Faith,
born of delusion or malice, winning a fleeting notoriety derived from the
precarious advantages of wealth, fame or fortune, these movements
sponsored by deluded, self-seeking adventurers find themselves, sooner or
later, enmeshed in the machinations of their authors, are buried in shame,
and sink eventually into complete oblivion.

The schism which their foolish leaders had contrived so sedulously to
produce within the Faith, will soon, to their utter amazement, come to be
regarded as a process of purification, a cleansing agency, which, far from
decimating the ranks of its followers, reinforces its indestructible
unity, and proclaims anew to a world, skeptical or indifferent, the
cohesive strength of the institutions of that Faith, the incorruptibility
of its purposes and principles, and the recuperative powers inherent in
its community life.

Were anyone to imagine or expect that a Cause, comprising within its orbit
so vast a portion of the globe, so turbulent in its history, so
challenging in its claims, so diversified in the elements it has
assimilated into its administrative structure, should, at all times, be
immune to any divergence of opinion, or any defection on the part of its
multitudinous followers, it would be sheer delusion, wholly unreasonable
and unwarranted, even in the face of the unprecedented evidence of the
miraculous power which its rise and progress have so powerfully exhibited.
That such a secession, however, whether effected by those who apostatize
their faith or preach heretical doctrines, should have failed, after the
lapse of a century, to split in twain the entire body of the adherents of
the Faith, or to create a grave, a permanent and irremediable breach in
its organic structure, is a fact too eloquent for even a casual observer
of the internal processes of its administrative order to either deny or
ignore.

Therein,